There is something we realized since the first ten minutes after we got in Selous Game Reserve. There's a lot happening here, all the time. Just a couple of days before, driving quickly towards the camp after a long trip, we spotted an incredible variety of animals – so of course... we couldn't wait for the time to go to a full day game drive!
We left after breakfast. The sun was shining high in the blue sky, making the landscape stunning in the light. We started running along the river side, where we saw crocodiles of every size and many bird species that live nearby the water. A very promising way to start the exploration.
During the hottest hours of the day it became a little more challenging to find animals, as most of them were hidden in the shadow. But we didn't give up. We saw giraffes and other herbivores. We stopped at midday nearby a plain populated by hundreds gazelles, and we had lunch there.
Early afternoon, the weather became a little fresher. Our driver was very good in approaching slowly the bushy spots, and able to guess where animals were hiding. After a few attempts, finally we found an amazing scene: two lionesses sleeping under a bush. We were anxious to move forward and find other animals, but the driver advised us to keep quiet and wait for the shadow to move a little bit... so we stopped there for a while. And it came the time when the lionesses needed to stand up and move aside; they were amazing, and just a few meters away from our car.
Later on, as the sun started to go down, it became much easier to spot animals. The last highlight of the day has been an hippo who suddenly came out of the water. It's so rare to see hippos standing on the ground, and also so interesting to see how they manage to move around despite the volume and weight of their body.
At the end of the day, we got back to the camp... just happy!
